Oh, Mama, Mama
by MissDiRed
Summary: A SI OC story with a pretty big twist; the SI is Charlotte Linlin-the notorious Yonko Big Mom. Determined to make best of her not-that-bad-actually situation, she changes seemingly insignificant things that will eventually come back in rather massive waves. A story about adventure, family, friendship, and Pirate Kings.


**A silly thing I and some people came up with on discord, which started with a 'what if SI OC, but Big Mom', and... Well, here be them effects.**

Cross-posted on AO3.

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Full Summary:

This is the story you know: A girl dies. A girl wakes up again, in a different world, in a different body, in a reality she knows and may or may not attempt to alter.

This is the story you don't know: Girl's name is Charlotte Linlin, a notorious pirate and a future Yonko, and, ideally, she'd like to see World Government overthrown, no matter how long she has to wait. And if she changes some seemingly insignificant things while she's at it, well.

(Eloise Camden died angry, bitter, and disillusioned. Charlotte Linlin lived on, wild, free, and shining bright. The world was never quite the same after.)

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If you want to see images pertaining to the story (namely, grandbrats), visit KillerGirlFuria on deviantArt.

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**Pairings currently featured in this story include;**

Charlotte Linlin/Kaido (past), Charlotte Linlin/Pound (past), Charlotte Lilin/Shiki (past), Charlotte Linlin & Edward Newgate (friendship), Charlotte Custard/Dracule Mihawk, Charlotte Cracker/Donquixote Rocinante

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**Oh, Mama, Mama**

**Prologue-Charlotte Linlin, Through the Years**

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•** 20 years old**

It starts with a name.

Or, it should have, maybe. In truth, it started with a fruit, a cursed thing, years and years past.

It culminates with a name.

She's twenty years old, and she just had triplets. Pregnancy isn't really something capable of taking a toll on her gargantuan-but-still-human body, and neither is the birth itself. It's when she's thinking of names, something changes.

"Oven," she mutters to the youngest infant, "Daifuku," at the middle one. And then; "Katakuri…?"

She knows a Katakuri. A powerful man with muscle of steel and crazy mastery over Haki, the Mochi-Mochi Devil Fruit under his command, towering over most of his dozens of siblings at nearly seventeen feet tall—

_Where is that coming from?_

Forty-eight during the Whole Cake Island Arc, the second Arc of the Yonko Saga—

_What Yonko Saga? What Whole Cake Island Arc?_

Losses, having fought the Strawhat Captain, after impairing the latter's ability to wreck the forced wedding of Strawhat Cook at the hands of said Cook's estranged family—

_What the fuck._

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Calm down, Linlin.

Oh right, her name is Charlotte Linlin, the Yonko—

She looks at the tiny infants sleeping next to her. Oven. Daifuku. Katakuri.

She looks at two-years-old Perospero. She looks at a one-year-old Compote.

"Mama, otay?" Perospero asks, tiny and bright, and she smiles.

"Yes, sweetling, Mama is okay. I just have a bit of a headache, okay? Let mama sleep, now."

Perospero nods. He's such an adorable child, not at all the crazy Minister of Candy in during the—

Linlin digs the heels of her palms into her eyes, and goes to sleep off the migraine building behind her ears. Nothing to worry about, she's probably just hallucinating.

Some three hours later, she opens her eyes to the wails of her youngest, and finally, realization hits her with all the finesse of a sledgehammer.

"Fuck. I've reincarnated as Charlotte fucking Linlin. Oh how fucking wonderful."

Then, a beat. She looks to the side, at the hungry infants, and remembers just who the father is.

"Oh my god, _I fucked Kaido_. I am never taking dares from Newgate again."

**• 21 years old**

The Rocks Crew was compiled almost exclusively of menaces. The Captain was a menace, Kaido was a menace, Shiki was a menace, John was a menace, and that's not even mentioning all the other 'lesser members' of the crew. They were also, almost all of them, very notoriously, ah, 'backstabby'. Honestly, Newgate was the only sane person around, and therefore Linlin just gravitated towards him, tagging him as the only other person with relative sanity and intelligence.

Kaido was a fucking brat, by the way. The only reason she slept with him was because they all got really drunk on Kaido's birthday and Newgate dared her to, like the punk he tended to be after too much booze.

And, maybe because Linlin right now has been Eloise Camden once upon a time, she experienced rather heavy shift in goals. Because, honestly, fuck that dream. It would end in misery for many, and Linlin just couldn't be bothered. Or to have so many children.

Eighty five. The Original Big Mom had eighty-fucking-five kids.

Yeah, no. She skips the quadruplets, even if the snakeneck man trying to woo her is very charming. Instead, she gets drunk with Newgate and doesn't let him rile her up this time. Predictably, it ends in a brawl.

On the other hand, it was common knowledge that Linlin ate more food than most, despite keeping her figure slim with gruelling training. Some idiots thought that it would be a good idea to slap a sea stone cuff on her and throw her in a cave to see how long she would last without food, and Linlin was too busy berating herself for not being vigilant enough in a crew infamous for its infighting to listen to whatever they were yapping about. All she knew was that they were older than her, longer on this crew, and they were morons.

Under the combination of stress, embarrassment over the situation, anger, and the creeping hunger, she lasted maybe two hours.

Losing control was an ugly thing, her senses went haywire for a second, and then everything went blank. She doesn't remember what happened after that, but the next time she came to her senses, a rather beat-up Newgate was pinning her to the floor and she tasted blood on her tongue.

It stays between them, but Newgate is a good… Friend? Friend. He helps her get rid of what is left of the two morons who decided to play a prank on her with a relatively straight face, even if it's very obvious what happened to them, and doesn't really bring that particular matter up again.

"I used to do that a lot, you know, when I was younger," she tells Newgate as she washes the blood off her mouth. "I got better, but it still happens."

He pats her shoulder, and Linlin sighs. Original Big Mom didn't even have a clue of her rampages, but she does. It's not difficult to fill in the blanks, especially with all the evidence already there.

Next time will be a shitshow, probably.

**• 22 years old**

Katakuri is two years old and someone—Linlin is suspecting Perospero—gave him donuts.

And now the boy will eat nothing else, and Linlin is growing progressively more stressed about having the boy consume all the necessary nutrients for a toddler and not like exclusively off of sugar.

On the other hand, Shiki joins the Rocks. He leers at Linlin, says that a woman being on a 'tough' crew is a joke.

"Wanna hear a joke?" two-year-old Katakuri asks him very seriously. "Your life is a good one."

Linlin laughs. Newgate laughs. Even Kaido chuckles! Shiki doesn't laugh.

Linlin punches him, and it ends in a rough, inn-worthy brawl and Shiki's newfound respect for Linlin.

Katakuri gets a whole box of donuts afterwards, even if she knows she shouldn't.

She stays away from the rotund man with five odd horns on top of its bald head. She's sure Original Big Mom found them interesting—no other way to explain the quintuplets—but she does not.

(She'd rather fuck Kaido again instead of that vaguely man-shaped something, and she wouldn't touch Kaido with a teen-foot-pole unless she meant to punch him. The brat really grated on her nerves.)

**• 23 years old**

She has Cracker and Custard in late February, two tiny lives after two years of rest. It surprises her—she remembers Cracker being from a set of triplets, not twins, but it's impossible to make that sort of mistake with her Observation Haki.

She only delivered twins. She only had twins, despite her original counterpart having triplets. It's… Interesting.

Then she can no longer wonder about it, because Katakuri rips his mouth open. How the fuck that happens, Linlin isn't sure, but what she's sure of is that it's not just because of his overeating. His wounds don't look like ripped flesh, they looked like they had been done with a knife.

Then some new little bitch in the crew asks her how her ugly kid is doing, and Linlin _knows_.

He doesn't live to see the sunset.

Katakuri recovers, of course he does, her precious, bright boy, but his journey is only now beginning and Linlin resents that she can't be there for him as much as she would like to, but she's not strong enough to leave Rocks yet, not without fear of retaliation. Being in the crew is dangerous, leaving it even more so, but the high-stress environment forces her to get stronger; and fast.

But she can put her children elsewhere, where it will be harder for anyone to reach them—somewhere not even other Rocks' Pirates will know. And she does.

It hurts, of course, but it will be seven more years until the crew falls under Garp and Roger and is disbanded. They'll manage that long.

Linlin must get stronger, anyway.

**• 24 years old**

Linlin may very well never be able to get over the fact just how weird young Newgate looks. He's still shorter than he should be, even if he's an adult, not as bulky, and—he looks so not like _himself _without his weird banana moustache. But the weirdest thing, in Linlin's humble opinion, is his hair.

She always forgets that Newgate is, in fact, blonde, and it always surprises her. He's _The _Whitebeard, for crying out loud! Mister Goda, why couldn't you just have made his hair white? Avoid the confusion and all?

But she will never be ashamed to admit that she loves his hair. Or just playing with hair in general. She's been taking good care of hers, and sat Newgate down almost daily. He suffered through it with a laugh and minimal resistance, but Linlin could tell that he liked to just sit back and let her brush it to her heart's content without fear of her stabbing him in the back.

And his hair was amazing, if Linlin could (with a tinge of jealousy) say so herself. Braided, more often than not these days, a simple plait or something creative, depending on how Linlin felt.

It was an odd thing, their friendship. She doubted anything like that had ever occurred in canon.

Shiki, the snot-nosed fool with maybe months on the Rocks, liked to tease them about being a couple. Neither paid his elementary courtyard jabs any mind, content to just bask in one another's relative sanity and general 'not-a-shit-person'-ness, and Shiki splutters when they don't jump away from one another and don't start spewing denials.

She likes to be mean in ways that don't include tormenting her prey, sometimes.

Linlin meets some drunkard in the bar who hits on her, and leaves in disgust.

Later, she realizes that he did, indeed, look like one of Original's assorted spawn. Oh well. Not a big loss.

(Linlin doesn't even mention that she would like to accost Kaido with a brush at least once to rid him of his 'I-just-woke-up' hair, even if her blood boils to see him walk around like that.)

**• 25 years old**

Newgate is rather leery of going all out against a pregnant woman, but Linlin assures him it's fine, really, he has nothing to worry about. Her body can take the type of beating Newgate is known to dish out, and she has been coating her womb in Armament Haki as a way of training.

(It doesn't occur to her that using armament Haki on just one selected organ is considered very rare and difficult to do. She just thought of it and did it, as it seemed like a good idea and did its job. Newgate doesn't figure out how special it is either. It's just another creative application, that's all.)

She tells Newgate she does such, and he looks at her a bit weirdly, but considering. Next time some new twerp tries to backstab him, their sword manages to go through the skin—but not the Haki-reinforced muscle.

Newgate seems to take it as a sign that Linlin's way of doing things is, in fact, a good way, and their training returns to normal, since he's no longer afraid of accidentally harming her children.

Brûlée and Broye are born shortly after one of their spars, and Linlin will forever treasure the face of a young, alarmed, panicking Newgate.

Shiki is convinced that the twins are Newgate's, actually. He has a sort-of epiphany 'a-ha' moment, as if Linlin and Newgate going to train in the morning and returning in the evening with two infants somehow meant that Newgate was miraculously their father.

He isn't, and Linlin isn't sure how to approach Shiki's brand of idiocy.

And then Katakuri finds and eats a devil fruit and Linlin has her hands full with both her youngest and him figuring out the Mochi Mochi powers.

**• 26 years old**

Finally, FINALLY she manages to make a functioning Incarnation with her Soul Soul Fruit. It takes longer than she thinks it should have, but that's mainly because she's not at all satisfied with the subpar quality blobs with arms the Original was able to make. No, Linlin's Incarnations are much more human shaped, and stronger.

She would leave her Homies with the children, but being a member of Rocks Pirates requires a lot, and she uses them to fight—and she cannot make more than two at the moment. Her soul is strong, but not quite strong enough to be safely split into more than three pieces.

She makes a lot of regular Homies, though. Especially since a lot of people on the crew find them freaky and disturbing, and Linlin takes an unholy amount of joy in making her crewmates miserable. They're a bunch of assholes, and it's some twenty years before the golden age of pirates.

This is the era of true pirates. A disgusting dog-eat-dog world where true camaraderie is rare.

Gol D. Roger couldn't find that thrice-damned treasure soon enough.

She loses control again, for the first time in four years. It's a record-setter, and Linlin can't quite remember just why she lost it. Newgate is there, though, and he beats the sense back into her. There are bruises and cracked ribs, but Linlin is grateful.

**• 27 years old**

"They are _**what**_?" Linlin asks, and Newgate chuckles, scratching his neck.

"They are betting on the state of our relationship," he repeats. "It was John's idea, and Shiki jumped the bandwagon the second it was available."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"What are those bets?"

"Well, Shiki for one is convinced that we've been together for years and are just good at hiding it. John, on the other hand, thinks it's mutual pining."

"Wow," Linlin snorts. "Can't they just accept that male-female friendship is a thing without romance involved and move on? For crying out loud-"

She keeps ranting, to Newgate's booming laughter.

(The betting pool would become nigh-legendary, in the years to come, something the oldest generation mentions as a funny anecdote in years to come.

Forty years after it starts, unexpectedly, Monkey D. Garp's and Silvers Rayleigh's bets end up the winning ones.)

**• 28 years old**

Rocks was getting more and more agitated, and Linlin was getting more and more unhappy with him. He was a shit captain, really, cared nothing for his crew. It was only ever him, him, and him. He wanted to be the King of the Fucking World.

Linlin could never get quite drunk enough to deal with him these days. But that was fine. If she was remembering the timeline right, he would fall to Garp and Roger in two years, and subsequently, lose his life. She's stayed so long, might as well suffer through remaining two years. She owed Rocks that much, she supposed.

She meets a man in a bar, as is a common theme in her life, and maybe it's the stress build-up, but she lets herself relax a bit. It does result in Moscato and Mash, whom she wasn't quite planning on having, but whatever, really.

**• 29 years old**

Newgate, with all the time he spends with Linlin, starts suspecting something. She's been getting antsy in the past few years, more and more stressed and coiled, more and more brutal during their training sessions. She would drag him off for days on end and then they would return with their muscles screaming and power growing.

Newgate is her friend, Linlin concludes. She could at least give him a hint.

"I don't think this crew has much longer," she confesses, because it doesn't, and she knows it, and next year Xebec will die and The Rocks will disband. "The Marines are having kittens over us, Rocks is getting crazier and crazier ideas - I'm afraid, you know? That I won't be strong enough for whatever comes next."

Newgate puts his hand on her shoulder. His presence is steady. Reassuring. Linlin allows herself to lean into it and pretend that everything is okay. That she's not a girl in a body not-hers, in a crazy world that's not supposed to exist, in a crew filled with murderers only looking to stab her in the back, flying under a captain that might very well be fucking _insane _at this point.

"It'll be fine," Newgate tells her. "You are strong, Linlin. You might not see it, but you're strong."

"I know I'm strong!" she argues. "But that means nothing if I'm not strong enough!"

"You are. Trust me, you are."

He hugs her, then. It's actually the first time he did, the first time anyone, outside of her children, had done so. It brings a steady sort of comfort and Linlin allows herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, the incoming shitstorm that is the God Valley Incident, won't be that bad.

**• 30 years old**

The God Valley Incident was That Bad.

Well, first of all, Xebec decided to go after World Nobles, for the first time in his career. This was his first idea in literal years that Linlin was wholeheartedly on-board with—because if there was a group of people that deserved death in this world, it was the World Nobles. So, Linlin goes with it, because fuck those bubbled bastards. Her bounty skyrocketed for murdering those wastes of oxygen, but it was a cathartic experience.

What followed—the fight part of the Incident—was a shitstorm of truly epic proportions that nobody was really prepared for, but some select few pushed through better than most.

And when Linlin says shitstorm of epic proportions, she means—they _evaporated_ the whole fucking _island_, in the end. If she ever wondered why God Valley never appeared on maps after that point, this was her answer. There was nothing _left_ to appear, just a reef growing on ruins. Way back when, before Eloise was Linlin, she read that the Island 'mysteriously vanished'.

Try: Newgate went on a rampage with his thrice-damned tremors and nearly took everyone with the island to seven hells, and then Linlin threw her two cents in with her Homies going crazy and, well.

There was a God Valley Island, and then there wasn't.

Xebec dies, in the end. Most of them die. In the end, only the absolute strongest were left standing; Garp, Roger, Linlin, Newgate, Kaido. Shiki and John, for all they were worth in Linlin's opinion.

But Xebec was dead. Rocks Pirates were officially done for. Linlin threw her hands up then and there, said 'fuck this', and left, with Newgate following suit, because he was always the one to get on board with a good idea. All former Rocks Pirates—well, those alive, at the least—did the same, eventually.

Garp doesn't bother going after them, and neither does Roger.

When Linlin gets home after the Rocks ordeal, still beat up and bruised after clashing with and standing her ground with legends, it's to find Brûlée with a gaping gash across her face, traumatized Katakuri, and Cracker absolutely ready to commit murder.

Linlin sees red. Cracker is more than happy to point out every single one of the bastards to her, and the only thing that keeps her from painting the streets with their blood is their age. Linlin may be a cold-blooded murderer with a rather long history of carnage, but she has standards.

Katakuri decides he wants to wear a scarf around his mouth, then.

"Brûlée got hurt because of me," he tells her, and Linlin just can't help but hug the boy. Such a good child. She doesn't comment when he grabs fistfuls of her coat and wails into her shoulder. She just kneels there, holding him close.

"It's your choice," she tells him later. "Wear the scarf if you feel it's the right thing to do. Or don't, and show the world that their opinions don't matter."

He still starts wearing his signature scarf, but it's down more often than it covers his face. And where Linlin hesitated to go after the people who hurt her daughter, Katakuri, ten years old and full of fury, has no such qualms.

Linlin has Mont-d'Or eventually, a little parting gift she took for herself from Shiki that Shiki had no idea about. Newgate laughs and laughs when she tells him.

**• 31 years old**

There's nothing much else to do, so Linlin resumes working with Streusen. He's the one who recommended Rocks to her, who has been aiding her pirating career ever since she was six, and Caramel's mysterious disappearance—

Fuck that. He's been helping her out ever since the day he saw her eat Mother Caramel.

There.

But now Rocks Crew is in the past, gone and never to return, and Linlin is ready to kickstart her own pirating career, as a Captain. She tells Newgate as much, and he laughs and claps her on the back. He's off to create Whitebeard Pirates now, and she's off to create Big Mom's Crew. It saddens her than she won't be able to see him that often anymore.

She throws her Den Den Mushi number at him, with a promise that they will occasionally meet up again to drink and spar, and leaves with Streusen. It's sad, because Newgate is her only friend, really, but it's also good, because she can now spend more time with her children. Maybe get more.

She's supposed to have Smoothie in about two years, isn't she? Good. She likes Smoothie.

**• 32 years old**

There are a lot of people who want to join her, Linlin realizes. Rocks was infamous, and so was his crew, but they were undeniably powerful, and many want to use her and her infamy to kickstart their own pirate careers. Even after just a year people flock to all former Rocks, because they mean money.

And Linlin, while ostentatiously wilder than Newgate—still not Whitebeard—is also a mother, and that, in the eyes of potential recruits makes her somewhat more mellow and less murderous than the likes of Kaido and Shiki.

Maybe it does. While Linlin doesn't mind violence and murder, she usually doesn't purposefully seek it out, but she's much more daring in her exploits than Newgate. Honestly, a perfect Captain, in the eyes of many.

Then one of the recruits makes fun of Katakuri's face and Linlin kicks him so hard he hits the water's surface only when he finally reaches the horizon. It sends a clear message; kids are here to stay, and you better not cause them trouble.

A lot of men leave at that, claiming they didn't sign up for daycare. There are a lot of others, however, for whom Linlin's notoriety and power is worth dealing with kids from time to time.

Besides, they're bright kids who love to learn. And, as one of the crooks learns when he makes a jab at Linlin within Katakuri's earshot and gets his arm almost chewed off for it, very vicious.

They don't manage to save the arm in the end, because Katakuri's teeth do a number on his nerves and tendons, and Linlin, predictably, is far more concerned with Katakuri's health after ingesting the blood of a person whose medical record might not even exist.

**• 33 years old**

It scares people, just how fast after their 'fall from grace' former Rocks Pirates get up. Shiki already has three ships under his name, John is growing more notorious by the day with just how boundless his greed is, and Newgate is slowly but surely scouting people.

Oh, and growing his banana moustache. He's finally starting to look like himself.

Linlin notices that, contrary to the loose mane he sported in canon, he is more often than not seen wearing his hair in a braid. It's a very small, inconsequential thing, but she's actually kind-of _happy _that she influenced him in such a way.

Other than that, she meets a rather charming man from the Longleg Tribe and lets herself be wooed for the night. Smoothie, Citron and Cinnamon are born later that year.

(Later, Linlin would learn that the man calling himself Edward Weevil was also born this year and, having known for a fact that Newgate did not sleep with anyone remotely like Miss Bakkin around that time, she would laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Hard to sleep with a woman when he was in the middle of being busy with exploring the other side of his bisexuality.)

**• 34 years old**

Linlin was constantly reminded of how huge she was compared to other humans and their human-sized world, but nothing drove the point home quite like the fact that Perospero recently decided that his new favourite mode of transportation was her hat. Well, it was Ares, shaped like a hat most of the time and always on hand, but it was a testament to the garment's size that Perospero, a rather tall teenager, could comfortably sit in the flaps of her hat for prolonged periods of time, usually with a book or two and an assortment of snacks to boot.

Honestly, Linlin sometimes forgot he was there, but Perospero was quick to remind her if she swerved too fast.

When they arrive at Langberry Atoll, Linlin carrying her oldest right there in her Homie-hat gives some of the guards of the shit ruler of the place a rather nasty surprise. Perospero is only sixteen, but he already has his devil fruit, and he's a force to be reckoned with. Currently, he might even be the strongest among her children; Katakuri is still figuring out the Mochi-Mochi Fruit and Haki, Cracker doesn't even have his fruit yet, and Smoothie is barely entering toddlerhood.

In the end, they get rid of the corrupt king ruling the entire Coleher Archipelago, and the formerly-oppressed people decide that electing Linlin as their queen is apparently a good idea. Longberry Island is promptly renamed Whole Cake Island, and the Archipelago is now Totto Land, and it's Perospero's and Compote's idea and, honestly, Linlin can do little more than accept it.

She hates the paperwork, and her two oldest get a stink eye for a good while after that and it makes them snicker like the brats they are, but un-fucking the mess Totto Land is instead of sailing the high seas also allows her to spend a lot more time with her youngest, most vulnerable children, so Linlin figures it's not all that bad.

**• 35 years old**

Yonko aren't quite a thing just yet, but the people are well aware that some pirates, their crews and captains, are completely out of their league even in New World Standards. It says something about Xebec post-mortem legacy that all of those big fish were in his crew at one point or another. The old captain might have been insane, but he left one hell of a legacy.

Linlin couldn't help but wonder—Shanks becomes a Yonko only about four years after he meets Luffy, give or take twenty years from now, or such. Who is the Yonko before him? IS there a Yonko before him, or is it just her, Newgate, and Kaido?

It will all be revealed, eventually. It's only a matter of years until she knows.

She has Melise eventually, and may the details of Linlin ever getting together with a moose mink be forgotten. The horns (and the hooves!) are just a fancy mutation that tends to happen in the family, and they can't prove shit.

It's a rather secretive affair, but Linlin grew in the five years since Rocks fell, and she has people who didn't wear her Jolly Roger but still answer to her. Their main job was reporting to her anything and everything interesting.

And a Celestial Dragon relinquishing his title was, indeed, interesting.

Linlin entertained the idea, briefly—reaching out to them, to Homing, to the Donquixote brothers. Changing their paths maybe, see where it took her. But then she decided against it. For Law to become the person she needed him to become to aid Luffy and bring about the collapse of the World Government, she first needed Doflamingo and Rocinante to suffer to become who they had to become.

(Letting Rocinate die later was up for debate, and debate was mostly about who should she send to retrieve the man and ensure his and Law's passage to Swallow Island.

Yes, Linlin was mean. Yes, she didn't care for lives at large. But there were characters and people she liked, and aiding those was something she could spare resources for, when she could.

Davy Jones knew she fucked the storyline up as it was already, and was only doing more.)

**• 36 years old**

She kept track of the Donquixotes out of nothing more than morbid curiosity. As Eloise—and boy, has this name remained unmentioned for long, and only now she would be actually outliving her past incarnation as Linlin—she loved Rocinante, and loved to hate Doflamingo. Homing, on the other hand, proved to be exactly what she thought he was.

A happy-go-lucky, naïve moron with no knowledge of the outside world, opinions on Celestial Dragons, and just basic social skills.

(Said social skills came down to something like 'hello there fellow humans, I, too, am human, let us get along'. It was as hilarious as it was tragic, and Linlin was bad enough person to actually laugh at it.)

On the other hand, it would appear that there are more winged races than just those from floating island. A man with wings of a bat decides that the fastest way of securing himself a place to live in Totto Land—more and more known as a place safe from Pirates, Marines, Slave Traders and all other what-have-you's—is to woo Linlin for it. Amused, she complies.

(Dacquoise is the first of her children to actually have a father on hand to spend time with. Linlin doesn't even remember the man's name most of the time, but Dacquoise visits him often, learning to be… well, whatever bat-hybrid-creature he is. Linlin is almost tempted to call them vampires, seeing as they prefer they meat raw and do enjoy drinking blood.)

**• 37 years old**

Living in the same part of the Grandline, barring the fact that it was the most ridiculous place to live in to begin with, what with crazy climate changes and geography that makes no sense, meant that Linlin and Newgate could still meet up fairly often. The Marines all collectively took a breath whenever that happened—once a year, at the very least—but it usually ends up with a rather brutal sparring match which Marines seem to chalk up to turf wars between some of the strongest players in the New World.

Ignorant fucks who knew nothing but it served the purpose it needed.

Newgate was Whitebeard at long last, with a fledgling crew none of which would eventually make it the final cut—not even Kozuki Oden, a bright but wild kid who joined Newgate literally a week before he met up with Linlin, who would eventually sail with Roger's not-fledging crew—and with his signature banana moustache that Linlin couldn't comprehend the logistics of, even seeing it in person.

She's learned not to ask. She slept better that way.

But they meet up like they do, level a mountain or two on a desolate island, and talk for a good half a day. It's a nice vacation, really, and keeps them both on their toes.

Galette and Poire are born later that year, from a man Linlin met whose only notable treat was that he was a half-fishman, which causes Poire to be born with two rows of fully developed, sharp teeth.

**• 38 years old**

Treasure is something that shouldn't be hoarded. It should be put into circulation and allowed to multiply, not left in some vault to stagnate. Or, at least, this is Linlin's creed, who's as much an entrepreneur as she's a pirate, a queen, and a mother. Yes, Totto Trading Company is only a fledgling that is beginning to take off, but money, to have any worth at all, needs to be used.

Therefore, when Linlin hears that Chinjao loses the ability to access his treasure—buried under the ice in a cold wasteland, just… Pickling or something like this—she barks out a mean-spirited laugh and picks up another application from some merchants wishing to set up shop on one of Totto Land's Islands.

She never thought she'd prove herself as a ruler, politician, and an entrepreneur, but here she was.

**• 39 years old**

Cracker has had his fruit for a few years at this point, and he was every bit the angry brat picking fights with anyone and everyone. Linlin knew that, one day, it would come back and bite him in the ass.

She kind-of forgot he was supposed to have a huge scar on his face up until the point he actually took an injury that would become said scar. He was just a year shy of seventeen—the age at which Linlin allowed her children to officially do whatever they wanted, be it leave, join the crew, or take over administration in Totto Land, or whatever else they came up with—and he took some words from some un-allied pirate crew a bit too seriously.

He went after them alone, and by the time Custard realized something was wrong and mobilized some of their older siblings, it was already too late. Sure, Cracker won the fight, but he never tolerated pain well, and the one radiating from his wound sent him into shock.

It was a miracle the doctors saved his eye, actually.

It ended up with a family-wide sleepover in Linlin's bedroom—her children knew they could just come in and sleep in her room if they so choose or needed, but they rarely did, and never all of them—but Linlin just made them look after the youngest, including newborn Prim and Praline, as she put off dealing with a sudden influx of trade deals for another day, content to just act as a base for a cuddle pile spanning all of the Charlotte Family.

**• 40 years old**

"Mama, I'm leaving," Custard tells her one day. She's all of seventeen, barely grown out of all the baby fat in Linlin's eyes, but so bright. Barely an adult, but in Custard's eyes determination shines like steel.

"Oh?" Linlin asks.

"Yes. I'm an adult now, and with everyone so strong, I-" Custard clutches the sword by her side. Ah. So that's what it's about. "I want to become strong, too. Strong enough to fight on their level, Mama."

"I understand," Linlin says, and kneels down to embrace her daughter. "Go. Follow your dreams. And when you're an amazing swordsman, come back home, so I can tell everybody just how amazing my daughter is. Okay?"

Custard sniffles, but wipes her eyes. Her smile, while rather wobbly, is bright and genuine.

"I'll make you proud!"

"Oh, silly child," Linlin chuckles. "I'm always proud of you, of all of you. Go make _yourself _proud."

Custard nods, and does just that.

(Linlin feels the shift when Gol D. Roger enters Grandline, finally setting out to seek Laugh Tale. She just wakes up one day, filled with a sort of giddy anticipation, and she knows that this is it. It's time. This is history in the making, and Linlin will live through it all.

In her vault, a Road Poneglyph waits, shining crimson, for a King to uncover its meaning.)

**• 41 years old**

Somewhere, deep down in her mind, Linlin expected the world to somehow follow canon in a way that would make Capone Pez her first grandchild. In almost thirty years from now.

And then Oven returned from his excursion into Paradise part of the Grandline, his brothers trailing behind him with varied degrees of amusement showing, and an infant in his arms, and that preconceived notion takes a nose dive right out of the window.

Daifuku can't help but snicker at his mother's entirely confused expression, and Katakuri elbows him, but amusement is rolling off him as well even if he doesn't really show it.

"Alright," Linlin sets the pen down and then puts her face in her hands. "Explain."

Daifuku snickers again and, judging by the muffled grunt, gets elbowed for it, again.

Oven coughs. "About a year ago, I met a woman in Paradise. We spent some time together, and, ah- It later turned out that she was from Kuja Tribe, from Amazon Lily, and she had a son."

"And thus, she gave you the kid and left?" Linlin asks, and her son nods.

"She seemed very unconcerned with the child's fate overall," he tells Linlin. "What else could I do? This is obviously my child, and we don't practice giving up those in this family."

Linlin could see where he was coming from. The infant—maybe three months old, if that—looked exactly the way Oven had at that age, and there was a certain familiarity to the soul of Linlin's descendants that she could sense with her Devil Fruit.

The brat was definitely her grandson.

"His name is Pecan, by the way," Oven adds, after a brief moment of silence. "Katakuri's idea."

Linlin can feel the migraine starting somewhere above her ears.

"Go," she says. "You've got baby shopping to do."

Daifuku snickers.

"Daifuku will help you."

"Wh- Mama!"

(The news of Shiki getting his ass handed to him by Roger and his crew was merely a bit of silver lining with the following chaos that was Oven's venture into parenthood and skyrocketing levels of stress.)

**• 42 years old**

Gol D. Roger is nothing like what she expected him to be, but somehow, he's also everything she expected he'd be, and **more**.

He's a complete and utter moron. Wild, free, bright, with that type of charisma that just made you like him regardless, as soon as you allowed yourself to actually get to know the man. He feared nothing and never shirked his responsibilities.

Truly, interacting with this man, and watching him interact with others, Linlin could only think of one name, a wide, unbothered smile and bold proclamations of a young boy who wouldn't even be born for nearly a decade yet.

Monkey D. Luffy.

Roger was just like that. Bright, wild, and undeterred.

But there's a surprise in Roger's crew, too—Rouge, a young woman from South Blue, was sailing with him. They were planning to retire in Baterilla, Roger and her, once they find One Piece. Rouge was young, lethal with knives, and fully aware that Roger's illness will kill him in a few years, but she was also a girl in love and determined to make the most of the few years they had left, and Linlin couldn't help but admire that.

If anything, Rouge is the most trigger-happy pirate on Oro Jackson, with the biggest taste for blood, and isn't that just a cherry on top. Roger might be a bright, wild idiot, but compared to Rouge, he's very docile.

Linlin indulges Roger, houses his crew, lets him read the Poneglyph and feeds that black hole of a man, and then they part, much more amicably than they originally should have. He promises say hello to Newgate for her.

Linlin likes to think of him as a friend. He'll be dead, in two years, and they both know it, and Linlin respects him all the more for it, because this man is doing whatever he wants during the end of his life, and the mark he will leave on the world is not one Linlin can hope to match.

She meets Pound sometime during the ordeal and thinks, _oh why not_. She knows for sure that he won't be a bad father, and he delivers. Linlin makes it clear that there will be no marriage, nor any long-term relationships, but Pound seems to care about relationships about as much as she, much more invested in doting over the newborn Chiffon and Lola.

What catches her off-guard is the fact that she's not the only person in the family who has decided to multiply this year. Compote requested a temporary leave a year before from her post, and then returned, months later, with a set of twins completely her own. She was envious of Oven, Compote explains. She always enjoyed living in a big family, and her younger brother procreating reminded her that she could expand it a bit herself, ergo: Macaron and Meringue. And Compote takes more after her mother than just appearance, as she doesn't remember, or even care, whom the father was.

Linlin wasn't quite sure how to feel about the fact that she gained two children, and two grandchildren in the span of a few months.

**• 43 years old**

They did it. The crazy bastard and his crazy crew did it.

Linlin knew they would, of course, but knowing it and living through it are two entirely different things. There's this sort of shift in the air that she feels, one that's been brewing ever since Roger entered the Grandline. She knows that a new era is afoot, and it did disappoint her a little that Roger didn't feel like toppling the government, but she supposed a brand new era was fine, too.

She'll just wait for Luffy to uproot the order of the world. It's only, what? Twenty-five years until he gets there? Maybe.

What Linlin didn't expect was for Roger to invite her for a last drink in Wano alongside Newgate but, intrigued, she accepted. Apparently her being nice during Roger's stay in Totto Land and just sharing the Road Poneglyph made a good impression, because unlike the original Linlin, she didn't quite care for One Piece. She had enough on her plate as it was.

They drank a lot. And Linlin learned a lot, and what she learned she would probably take to her grave, but she be damned if she didn't aid any and all inheritor of the Will of D who wasn't Teach from that point onwards, because that was some world-breaking wild shit.

A little bit later, when they part, Linlin drags Roger off to the side for a moment.

"Your son will be an amazing person," she tells him, and he stills. "You can go die now, Roger. I'll divert the Marine's attention away from the South as much as I can."

His eyes are suspiciously shiny when he utters a 'thank you'.

It's the last time Linlin sees him.

**• 44 years old**

Linlin almost goes to Lougetown. Almost. Instead, she tracks down Newgate with a cargo full of really strong alcohol and they get absolutely wasted together as their friend/rival/whatever else Roger was ends his journey with a bang, still on his own terms rather than succumbing to his illness, or even the Marines.

"What if I told you that I know a possible way in which future events may play out?" she asks Newgate, and he looks at her for a long moment, and then at the setting sun.

"I'd say that the world is full of mysteries," is the answer he gives after consideration.

"Hmmm. That may be so," she muses. "Hey, 'Gates?"

"Yes?"

"When you decide to sacrifice your life for Roger's kid, some over twenty years from now, do me a fucking favour and call for backup, okay?"

"…okay."

"Thanks."

(Twenty-two years later Newgate will look at the ruins of Marineford, remember this conversation, and think_, huh_.)

(Shiki rages, and rages, and rages, and it gets him nowhere but straight to Impel Down.)

**• 45 years old**

The world collectively flinches when Charlotte Linlin, an infamous Yonko and captain of the notorious Big Mom Pirates, comes forward and blatantly claims to have slept with Gol D. Roger.

But to the Marines, it seems plausible. Much more plausible than Roger loving some girl from South Blue, and Linlin is just as infamous for her monstrous power as she is for her taste in men—especially strong men—and going after whomever caught her fancy at the moment. And Roger was, indeed, a strong man—and he did stay in Totto Land for the Road Poneglyph, and, on top of that, ships with Big Mom's Jolly Roger were conveniently spotted around Baterilla in the past two years, and she herself was suspiciously absent from Totto Land or, indeed, the New World, when they were there.

(The world conveniently forgets that there was a woman from South Blue in Roger's crew, because being blind is comfortable.)

The Marines swallow the shiny, dangling bait—hook, line, and sinker, Baterilla Island and South Blue blissfully forgotten, filed away as Linlin's vacation spot that Roger stumbled upon, or they both agreed upon, people's imaginations running wild about their supposed romance.

When they realize that, while they cannot verify if Linlin actually did as she claimed, but definitely no child was born from that union, it's much too late for them to seek scion of the Pirate King where they could actually find it.

Portgas D. Rouge is a lovely woman, just as stab-happy at Linlin remembers, but significantly more mellow, and she sends Linlin a thank-you card all the way from Dawn Island on East Blue about half a year after the statement, alive and a mother, a picture of a month-year-old Ace attached. Linlin smiles at a job well done, and, on an impulse, writes back. Rouge made a good first impression when Roger's Crew stayed in Totto Land, after all.

A friendship unthinkable to the world and not meant to be blooms between a woman who's supposed to be a monster and a woman who's supposed to be dead, despite the distance.

(There's no telling how many children Linlin's statement has saved from Marine-issued infanticide, but the numbers likely reach thousands. Later, much, much later, the pirate crew of Eustass Kidd comes knocking, among them faces she doesn't recognize, and Kidd himself a little less jaded.

Portgas D. Ace is some two years older and it changes exactly nothing in his journey forward. Having a loving mother raise him, however, does.)

**• 46 years old**

The Massacre of Ohara is a mess, and Linlin does not like it. Buster Call is a fucking madness, and Government abusing its power just because few crazy old men want to keep the truth six feet under is an absolutely fucking insane notion to Linlin.

Therefore, it's not really a surprise when she dispatches submarines to Ohara to pick out any and all survivors and just bring them over to Totto Land. With Big Mom pirates dressed as Marines, 'rounding up whoever's left', the Marines suspect nothing.

Linlin laughs and _laughs _at their self-assured righteousness and complete lack of suspicion.

Returning to what was left of Ohara and extracting their Poneglyph from the ruins afew months later was child's play, and Linlin would much rather gather as many of those as she could. One day she would have either Pudding or Nico Robin read them.

Shiki, literally too angry to stay locked up in Impel Down, proceeds to break out, further affirming Linlin's belief that he's just too angry to function, no matter his usual easy-going, jovial attitude. There are some serious anger issues boiling under that.

Linlin has Raisin, eventually, and the Marines do a double-take after her proclamation from few years back, but Linlin is rather unbothered by the fact. It's not like they can do much at this point—she's sure she could reliably take down an Admiral or two at this point in her life all by herself, and they seem to realize it too, because nobody goes to investigate if Raisin is actually, by some weird coincidence, Roger's son.

He isn't, but Linlin is perfectly fine giving the Marines a massive freak-out.

**• 47 years old**

Custard comes back home for a moment, and when she bursts into Linlin's office, the older woman can only stare for a moment. Not because she hasn't seen much of her daughter in the past seven years sans the relatively regular letters and calls, but because Linlin somehow failed to connect the dots between the 'edgy, over-the-top idiot' that Custard expressed she took a shine to due to shared interests and similar power level and young, twenty-two year old Dracule Mihawk that Custard has actually dragged before her mother.

The bigger surprise, however, was a child carried by the young man in a sling. Not an infant anymore but not quite a toddler yet, with wide yellow eyes and lilac hair.

"This is Éclair, our kid," Custard declares proudly as Mihawk, mortified, tries to look everywhere but his girlfriend's mother. He was, after all, just unceremoniously dragged before his girlfriend's mother to be introduced only now, after he already has a child with Custard. Linlin _kind-of _understands.

"You'll be keeping this one?" she asks with a raised eyebrow.

"We're engaged, actually!" Custard chirps happily, and Linlin pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Well then. Leave the spawn with Cracker and get to planning the wedding, would you?"

Mihawk is rather flabbergasted at the turn of events, but suffers through most of everything stoically. Linlin can't say she has anything against him—won't, really. When Custard mentioned him in letters, she only had good things to say. And when he looked at her, or their daughter, his eyes took on this sort of soft hue that effectively killed all of Linlin's counter-arguments.

That, and she saw their spar first-hand. Custard and Mihawk may have been engaged, but they pulled no punches when fighting, constantly pushing one another to be better. Mihawk wasn't the Greatest Swordsman just yet, but he still had some twenty years before he had to be, and Custard was probably the best swordfighter the Charlotte family produced, period.

Cracker was happy to have his twin back, even if it was merely for a month or such. He had the luxury of being able to actually leave Totto Land for extended periods of time, which allowed him to visit her—he knew his sister was pregnant, for example, but didn't deign to tell his mother. The brat.

Then, he took one look at his niece, at last in person, and fell in love on the spot, months-old Éclair instantly elevated to the status of his absolute favourite sibling-spawn. And, truly, who would've thought that Cracker, half-insane, very aggressive, unpredictable, and wild, would make such a responsible and doting uncle? He was a great babysitter, at least. Linlin has never seen him that responsible before.

Custard and Mihawk get married surrounded by the Charlotte Family, and little else. Mihawk doesn't have any living relatives, and the fact that he's so easily accepted seems to surprise him. Linlin for her part knows that her daughters, all of them, take after her, and it's best to just let them do whatever they please most of the time, and Custard is far from an exception.

He's Linlin's first in-law, actually, what with Pecan's mother being a Kuja who didn't want a son and the father of Macaron and Meringue long ago forgotten by Compote. It's a reminder for Linlin, that she's almost fifty and a lot of her children are adults already. Many have important functions in Totto Land, many fly with the crew if needed.

She's old. Her body is far from frail, her bones never once creaked, but she's old.

Custard and Mihawk leave a week after their wedding, Mihawk officially a part of the Charlotte Family, but publicly they both go by Dracule, and so does Éclair. World Government, for all their reach, didn't manage to connect Custard to Linlin, and everyone would rather it stayed so.

**• 48 years old**

Linlin hasn't paid much attention to Kaido for the past eighteen years since the Rocks split, not really. They met a few times, true, and every single one Linlin took great joy in making him very uncomfortable and considering bolting on her, but otherwise, he did his thing and she did her thing.

And then he went and took over Wano with the help of some guy Linlin thinks might've been named Orochi, and nobody was particularly happy with him. Linlin might've met Kozuki Oden twice in her whole life, but the man left a rather good impression regardless. Newgate, however—Newgate sailed with Oden, before he sailed with Marco and most of his current crew, and always had a good thing or a dozen to say about his former division commander.

What a way to get himself on Newgate's shitlist, truly. Linlin could only congratulate Kaido on this crazy manoeuvre for the sheer gall it took to pull such a thing off. Even she was leery of getting on Newgate's bad side, and she could reliably take him in a fight.

It just further proved her that Kaido was an angry brat with the self-preservation of an eleven-year-old who met god and wasn't impressed.

What worked in Kaido's favour was that Newgate was busy extending his patronage over Fish-Man Island in the face of most recent slave hunts. It was probably the only thing that saved Kaido, actually.

(If Newgate asked, Linlin would have stormed Wano alongside him. Newgate knew this, Kaido knew this. Maybe it was for the best he didn't, not wanting to further raze the already devastated country.)

And then, by the very end of the year, the Marines finally deign to coin the term 'Yonko' and so, Linlin, additionally to being a Captain and a Queen, becomes one of the Emperors of the Sea, alongside Newgate, Kaido, and Shiki. Finally.

Her bounty is measly three and a half billion now, a little less than a billion shy of what she should have in twenty years. Newgate's is four billion, and Kaido's skyrocketed after Wano to almost match him.

She doesn't care how much Shiki is worth, except that it's less than her.

**• 49 years old**

Let it be said and let it be known, Linlin has always known that Cracker isn't the smartest of her children. He's wild, and loyal, and lovable, but sometimes, he's such an absolute moron it could be called genius.

Whitebeard Crew is mostly normal-sized humans, much unlike Big Mom Pirates who come in as many shapes and forms as humanly (and inhumanly) possible, and this garners attention. Someone is eventually bound to ask a stupid question.

And someone is bound to answer it.

"How tall even is your mother?" Izo asks nobody in particular. Cracker looks at the samurai, then at Linlin, and then at Marco, and considers.

"About three and a half Marco's tall, why?" Cracker says, eventually, and everybody on board of Queen Mama Chanter just freezes. Cracker looks around, confused, and suddenly, everybody is roaring with laughter, and Marco, face red and blue flames dancing behind his ears, is flailing indignantly.

As far as inside jokes go, measuring the height of things in Marco's has become the most prevalent one between two crews, much to the mortification of the Zoan user.

(There are whispers of an alliance between Whitebeard Pirates and Big Mom Pirates, fearful and hushed. Everybody knows that the two crews are on exceptionally good terms with one another, unlike the other Yonko. Linlin and Newgate laugh and drink; they won't fight one another, but they don't think of an alliance. It could cause too big of a storm for them to bother dealing with.)

**• 50 years old**

Dragon stares, uncomprehending, at the envelope in his hands. He studies and cross-examines it, and the bills that came with it, questions the person who received the envelope from a talking sun, and it's crazy, but it's neither a joke nor some ploy.

There's good half a billion beli in the envelope. In cash. Cash that they need rather desperately right now, and Dragon just—can't believe it.

'_A little spare change I managed to throw together quickly_,' the attached note reads, '_for you and your boyband to kick off easier, and the worthy goal of knocking down those useless pigs off the high chair they never deserved._

Signed;_ A friend_.'

So, yes. Dragon is confused. This helps—this really, truly helps. But who on earth would even know what they were beginning to do?

Somewhere, far across the sea, Charlotte Linlin cackles when her little Revolutionary mole gives her a secretly snapped picture of a flabbergasted Dragon, worth more than any favour she could potentially call in for the donation.

**• 51 years old**

Linlin enjoys some good carnage every once in a while, she really does, but when the Rob Lucci mess happens, she can't help but look at it and think, 'someone should lock up that kid'.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how one breeds fanatic psychopaths who claim that the Celestial Dragons are gods on earth and not pathetic vermin to be exterminated yesterday.

She has not, and will not, forgive him what happened on the Levely seventeen years from now. Call Linlin petty, but the kid really is insane, and should be contained, not endorsed.

The fall of World Government can't come soon enough, really. But it's closer than it is farther—it shouldn't take more than twenty years for the now-two-year-old Luffy to go and become the Pirate King and wreak havoc all around. And if Linlin is planning on calling dibs on Rob Lucci, well—

He is a despicable, dangerous brat with little to no prospect of redemption.

And maybe because of this anger she worked herself into, or maybe because of more, Linlin falls into the crazed berserker state she should be known for. Once she's recovered, she's not overly happy. But it took years for it to relapse, whereas it was supposed to be a regular occurrence. She was getting better. Much better.

**• 52 Years Old**

Whatever happened to the three-eyed tribe, Linlin isn't sure, but when Daifuku's ship fishes out a few stragglers from the sea, Linlin concludes with certainty that it was nothing good. But they're in desperate need of a home, so Daifuku brings them before Linlin, because she's jsut as known for taking in strays and letting them live in Totto Land as she's known for her power and amount of children, and she locates them somewhere on Cacao Island.

All is well.

One of the three-eyed people, a man who looks pretty much exactly like male version of Pudding, woos Linlin, and she decides that he's charming enough.

Pudding is born in late June. For the three-eyed tribe, this serves as an assurance that they do have a safe place in Totto Land. For Linlin, she finally had all the children she planned on having. Pudding is one of her four children with a father she can cart her off to for a moment if the paperwork builds too much, and that's a plus, too.

And then the Flevance Incident occurs, and people call it an incurable disease that you can apparently contract, and therefore exterminate the whole city, and-

If any of her troops were anywhere near the city when it fell, Linlin would have reacted. Right now, she was left cursing her lack of foresight—she knew the city would fall! She should have paid closer attention! So much death due to mass hysteria and the government, when all the illness was, was a build-up of a toxic metal. Potentially curable—if Totto Land's Pharma had actual people to study and develop a treatment for.

"It's not your fault, mama," Perospero tells her, and she sighs, tired and weary. It may not be her fault, but it sure as fuck feels as if it is.

"I know," she tells her eldest. "Doesn't make me feel any better, Pero."

"Mama-"

"The Government knew, years in advance," she tells him, and his eyes harden. "They knew and said nothing. If I went in and told them the lead is poisonous, I'd be laughed right out of the door."

"Oh. Is this why you hate the Government so much?"

"Oh, Perospero, sweetling. This is but one reason—and I have a whole ocean of those."

And if Linlin starts keeping much closer eye at the Ope Ope no Mi, Donquixote Pirates and North Blue in general—

Well.

**• 53 years old**

If there's some sort of karmic justice in the works, then Fisher Tiger's Rebellion must be it. It rocks the world, the shit he stirs up at Mary Geoise, and Linlin can't help but root for him.

But he frees the slaves with reckless abandon, just to free them, not quite knowing what to do with them _after_. And, true—for many, death is a better alternative to being slaves of those despicable vermin called World Nobles. And so, if there were unmarked ships waiting for the slaves who would otherwise potentially drown, they got forgotten in the chaos.

And Linlin?

She just wanted to see Mary Geoise _burn_.

(By Old Gods, was it an amazing show.)

**• 54 years old**

It takes her longer than she cares to admit to realize that she doesn't age right. Oh, she does age, true—but, slowly. Too slowly, for a human. She's pushing mid-fifties, now, and yet her body is still fresh in a way a senior should not be. Her bones don't ache, her back doesn't act up, not once. Her skin doesn't sag, wrinkles don't quite want to come in. Her hair is still a lush, vibrant pink.

She looks thirty, maybe thirty-five. Nowhere near fifty-four.

"Oh, Mama, Mama," Smoothie sighs, like she always does when Linlin brings up things Smoothie thinks her mother should know. "It's most likely the Soul Soul Fruit. You take the lifespan of the idiots who try to fight you, right? How much additional life do you have right now?"

Linlin checks. It's twice her natural remaining lifespan, and it's seeping into her bones.

"Oh," she says, and Smoothie snorts.

"Oh, Mama, Mama," the girl says again, and Linlin bristles.

"I didn't think, okay? I panicked a bit!"

Smoothie laughs.

Brats, the lot of them! And then they wonder why Katakuri was her favourite. He's not mean to her!

**• 55 years old**

Linlin realizes that she might be going overboard, but being unprepared is what tends to kill people, not being too careful. And so, she sends Cracker and Katakuri both, straight to Minion Island in North Blue, to interfere with Donquixote Doflamingo. Their rehearsed excuse for being there is that they've been tracking the Ope Ope no Mi, and Linlin wants it. Their actual goal? Ensure that Trafalgar Law eats the damn thing and Donquixote Rocinante survives, and that they're both safely delivered to Swallow Island and left to their own devices. Pecan, somehow, manages to sneak onboard.

And if she has some of the best medics from Totto Land go on a slightly forced vacation to Minion, that's just simple common sense.

They come into conflict with Donquixote Pirates. Pecan loses his eye. Katakuri loses his shit. And Doflamingo's Birdcage can, indeed, be ripped apart with bare, haki-coated hands. At least when you're a very pissed-off Katakuri.

(Later, maybe an hour or two, Donquixote Rocinante can be seen sitting on a medical cot, hooked up to a quantity of equipment and at least two separate IV drips, reeling and trying to make sense of the mess that was Minion Island. He knows one thing; hadn't Big Mom's ship, suspiciously manned with top-tier medical staff and two of the strongest people she had shown up, he'd be dead, and Law quite possibly would be too.

As it were, the boy was listening to one of the doctors go on a tirade about heavy metal poisoning and toxicity, throwing in a curse aimed at World Government every two or three sentences. Most importantly, by the end of it, Law was able to start removing the Amber Lead build-up with his fruit ability, thanks to the information.

Rocinante only looked up as a man with a scar on his face and long purple ponytail—Charlotte Cracker, bounty over eight hundred million, his memory supplied—strode into the infirmary as if he owned the place. Judging by the name and design of the ship—The Cookie Castle—the statement might have very well been true.

"Oh, you're actually alive. Good, I heard it was a bit hit and miss. Mama will be happy."

Rocinante stiffens. "And what does, exactly, Big Mom want with us?" he asks carefully. Cracker looks at him for a moment, and then laughs. And then gets promptly slapped upside the head by the man entering behind him. Tall and vibrating with power. Charlotte Katakuri, bounty at almost one billion. Katakuri and Cracker had enough power between them to actually take down an Admiral, or so the wild gossip went.

Gods knew that Doffy went down fast and hard, alive only because they weren't allowed to kill him.

Katakuri sure as hell looked like he wanted to, after Doffy ripped his nephew's eye out.

"Stop freaking them out," Katakuri chastises, and turns to Rocinante. "I am no expert at what Mama thinks, or why she does things, but she always has a reason. Despite its potential, we don't actually have an interest in the Ope Ope fruit, or you, or the kid."

"Then… Why? And what now?"

"I told you, I don't know why Mama does certain things. She just does. All we were to do here was to ensure your survival, and drop you off at Swallow Island. Which we'll do as soon as you're stable."

"And then?"

"We're going back to Totto Land. What you are going to do, I couldn't care less."

Rocinante huffs, and considers. The Yonko do whatever the Yonko want, after all, and there's never any telling what will they do next, especially Big Mom. She's an oddity Marines continuously attempted to crack, and never succeeded.

But maybe, just maybe, everything will be alright.)

**• 56 years old**

This year's correspondence with Rouge is by far the most entertaining and engrossing. Reading the other woman's often long, increasingly ranting in nature letters is quickly becoming Linlin's favorite past-time. Exchanging letters through a subspecies of News Coo is fast and easy, and Linlin isn't sure how isn't it popular. It's by far the easiest method of contact with places where Den Den Network doesn't quite reach.

Rouge retells a true epoch in parts as they happen, and an originally tragic story becomes exceptionally amusing, when it's not just three boys, but also their irate, stab-happy mother hounding pirates and nobles alike.

It starts with Shanks and his flailing, because apparently Rayleigh and Crocus were the only ones who actually knew about Roger's and Rouge's relationship. Then Luffy—and Garp had enough brainpower to give him to Rouge from the start, at least—snatches and eats the Gomu Gomu fruit, to everyone's horror and Rouge's exasperation, and there's good half a page of the younger woman's essay on why and how is Shanks a fucking moron.

Then, Porchemy kidnaps Luffy, and there's a side-note from presumably Sabo, a short notice that he had no idea a human can bleed so much, and that he learned so much about human anatomy from simply looking at what's inside. The rest was Rouge's rant on bandits pretending to be pirates.

Then, Outlook happens.

Or, more accurately, Rouge happens to Outlook. Grey Terminal still gets burned down, but Rouge and Dadan—the designated babysitter, because there must be Dadan in ASL Origin Story—make quick work of Bluejam, especially since, much to their horror, Sabo gets targeted and attacked by the pirate. Rouge writes about a scar on the side of his face and a rather nasty concussion that she strongarms a conveniently-there Dragon to help her treat.

Because Dragon also makes an appearance in Rouge's letters, but unlike grabbing an amnesiac Sabo, he gets subjected to two whole days with his very own spawn, Luffy, to keep him off Sabo as the older boy recovers. He's a changed man by the end of it, Linlin is sure.

A little thing that snowballed so big. A simple rumour that Linlin spread, and then suddenly Rouge is alive, Ace is two years older and short on daddy issues, Sabo is not an amnesiac and Outlook is out of his life, and Luffy… Luffy is still becoming the Pirate King and Linlin better believe it, because she's a Yonko and he's gonna defeat her one day.

Or something like that. She's not sure she deciphered his chicken scratch properly, but he's trying.

She smiles in her office, reading the newest instalment in the story of the ASL family.

(On a whim, because the best things happen on a whim, she pens another letter, and addresses it to Swallow Island.

A tentative reply comes two weeks later, and she smiles.)

Somewhere along the way, Linlin suffers the first berserker trance in good five years. Some things get destroyed, but all her children work together to subjugate her, and the losses are minimal. Even crazed, Linllin subconsciously avoids hurting her children, and they use that to bring her back to her senses. But the attacks have come with lesser frequency, first weeks, then months, then years, and she's reasonably certain that, if she manages well, next slip won't occur for a long time.

(But it inevitably will. Marines will make a mistake, try to execute a boy—and Linlin will say, no, you don't do that. And she will fight. And she will get hurt.

And then, that repressed, normally-controlled part of her will rear its ugly head one last time.)

**• 57 years old**

Fisher Tiger's days come and go, Jinbei becomes a Schichibukai, Arlong throws a hissy fit.

And if Linlinn writes in one of her letters to Rouge to reach out to Bell-mere and keep an eye on Cocoyashi, that's between the two of them. And if she also directs her to maybe visit Banchina on Gecko Island and attaches a box full of medicine—well. What Linlin does, Linlin will do, and her children long since stopped questioning her line of thought.

Perospero doesn't even bother to question when she has him organize a small ship to East Blue of all places, to follow the tracks of a cruise ship where the crew eventually finds and saves an old man and a child, survivors from the cruiser. There are some odd looks when she just gives the old man two hundred million beli, but there's food involved—a restaurant to be opened—so they let it go.

(Years and years from now they will look back at it, at the King of Pirates and his crew, happier, stronger, more stable than they maybe should be, and think, _huh_.)

**• 58 years old**

Linlin isn't sure whether it's Arlong really being pathetic excuse of a fishman, or a testament to Rouge's training, but he gets beaten to a pulp by three children (nine, twelve, and fourteen, respectively). How it goes down is more a tragicomedy than real life—Arlong needs a navigator, so he decides to simply kidnap Nami. Like one does, because human children are apparently up for grabs, yeah?

Well, Ace, Sabo and Luffy take offense to that, and by the end of the day there's one beaten-up fishman on the square, his shocked crew, and Nami enthusiastically promising Luffy to be his navigator whenever he finally decides to set off.

(No sooner than you're seventeen, Rouge reminds him gently.

But only if Ace promises to set out later than seventeen, because he's the oldest and Luffy doesn't want to be without his biggest brother too long.)

Linlin sends them sweets and moves to read Rocinante's tirade on how Law met and adopted a polar bear mink and two ragamuffins and they're a pirate crew now, apparently, and the crazy doctor-inventor is crazy, and he also kind-of hates Cracker, because last time Linlin's fifth son visited, he used a creative threat, and Law heard it and now was threatening everyone mildly irritating to steal their kneecaps.

Which he actually could do, with his fruit powers. Which he did, when Arthur Bacca arrived and decided to be a bitch about some treasure or other.

Linlin wisely didn't mention the fact that Cracker knowing this insult was her fault in the first place. But it got Law a submarine, and when he finally named his pirate crew, still in Rocinante's honour, Rocinante cried.

(Dressrosa still happens. Linlin could just send an armada there. Hell, she could go alone. Rocinante tells her not to. Doflamingo is his problem, and he will deal with him. Aside from the takeover, of which they learned only after the fact, the country it not in too terrible of a situation.

Besides, Linlin is a queen of her own country, and she should not get involved in the politics of another, no matter how much she would like to.

In the corner, Law sharpens Kikoku and plots, because Rocinante is nice, too nice, and _he wants Doflamingo's head_.)

Then a patrol cruiser finds a miserable crew of minks, what's left of Nox Pirates that's not Pedro and Zepo, and Linlin has her hands full making sure they have a place to stay.

**• 59 years old**

Linlin looks at Newgate, and at all those machines he's beginning to be hooked up to, and thinks; what if?

"What are you plotting?" Newgate asks the second the considering look crosses her eyes, because he knows her so well, and Linlin sighs.

"You're old," she tells him. "And you're only getting older. Your body is starting to fail."

"I'm sixty-five, of course I'm old. There's no cure for age, and not everybody can hold up as well as you do."

Linlin stands up. "That's exactly the point, 'Gates. I'm not 'holding up this well' because of good genetics and a healthy lifestyle."

"What?"

"My Devil Fruit, 'Gates!" she says, as the idea forms in her head. "My Devil Fruit—I absorb the life force of other people. That's what's keeping me young, and if so, then maybe-"

"Linlin-"

"Look, I'm not saying it'll work, but if I can absorb people's vitality, then why shouldn't I be able to share it?" she asks, all but leaning over him, eyes sparkling. "I never actually tried doing that, and I have a lot, since I don't spawn Homies like crazy. Please, 'Gates? Let me try, if only to see if I can?"

Newgate can only nod, really, faced with those eyes combined with this childish enthusiasm. It's crazy, really, to hope that it'll actually work, that his joints will stop creaking, blood pressure will go down, spine stops trying to cave in on itself. So he lets her.

But when she actually materializes a sphere of dense, tangible, lilac-and-lime smoke and pushes it into the back of his neck, the relief that seeps into his bones is almost instantaneous. He breathes deeper, allows his muscles to relax a little.

Linlin feeds more energy in. How much, Newgate isn't sure. But he does feel it—while he doesn't particularly feel younger, his body feels much less like it's about to fail him.

(Marco stumbles when he sees the results of medical scan a few days later, and Newgate laughs. Linlin has always been that one crazy, unpredictable constant in his life, capable of doing the most ridiculous things as if they were the obvious solutions.)

**• 60 years old**

There, in Charlotte Family Archives, lays a very thick, obviously used book titled, in young Custard's chicken-scrawl, 'The Life and Dumbassery of Charlotte Cracker'. It's a book of accounts, and also of bets, made, resolved and paid off.

Cracker is the family's wildcard, and it became somewhat of a tradition to bet on whatever dumb shit he would do next. The bets, of course, weren't made consecutively—only after Katakuri's 'exasperated elder brother' sense went tingling the book would be retrieved, the next series of bets would be made and recorded, and the siblings would wait with baited breath for Cracker's next show of dumbassery. Katakuri usually won the bets, and so did Custard, simply because they knew Cracker the best, and the record book held, among other things, popularizing of measuring height in Marco's and teaching Law to threaten people to steal their kneecaps.

The book itself was a good thirty years old, as well, and it held much more things, bigger and smaller alike. Younger Charlottes grew up on these stories, crazy, chaotic and amusing.

So when this time Katakuri's head suddenly swivelled and he started eyeballing Cracker really hard, Daifuku just yelled 'get the records book!' and the betting was on with the wildest guesses.

Then, the Heart Pirates decided to visit Totto Land, and Katakuri's eyes just shone with a realization.

"He took a shine to that ex-marine, Rocinante. Now they they're here in Totto Land, I expect a lot of flailing and gay panic, by the end of which they'll get together."

He was right, of course. Cracker's unconscious courtship and following realization was messy and rather explosive and entirely too amusing to his siblings in Cracker's humble opinion, but the whole ordeal ended up with Rocinante agreeing to be his boyfriend and all was well.

And if Sengoku was still Roci's designated number to call whenever he had existential problem, well. Linlin was amused by his rants.

Heart Pirates docked at Totto Land sometimes—it was not time for Law to make a name for himself just yet, and the kingdom provided both safety, medical knowledge, and Rocinante's boyfriend. Eventually someone, at some point (probably Penguin, or at least Law blames him) called Linlin 'Auntie' and after that, it just stuck.

**• 61 years old**

Loki decides that seeing Lola once is enough to fall in love with her and makes him viable to ask for her hand in marriage. She turns him down.

Then Loki gets a genius idea of asking Linlin to make Lola marry him. He gets laughed straight out of the room. Linlin doesn't care for giants, unlike her original counterpart. She does, however, care about her numerous spawn.

"They're my children, not property. If you can't convince her to marry you by your own merit, then you're either not good enough, or not meant to be. Don't come crying to me, I have about as much control over my children's love lives as I have over the shit other Yonko do."

And when Lola leaves to make her own pirate career and to search for love, it's with Linlin's blessing and Pound's entirely too many tears.

"Do grow up," Linlin scoffs, when the man doesn't stop crying. "They're adults, they can do whatever they want."

"I know! But- But Lolaaaaaa! My baby giiirl!"

"Oh do shut up, she promised she'll call!" Chiffon bemoans, probably wishing she went with her twin after all. Linlin just goes to visit Newgate and go bar-hopping later to avoid the mess that is Pound, and if she feeds the other Yonko more lifespan while they're at it, then that's on her.

**• 62 years old**

Sengoku was _this_ close to jumping out of the window in vain hopes of ending himself, and it was only in small part because of Garp gushing about his cute little grandsons.

First, not even two years ago, Rocinante decided that Sengoku would be the best target for calling to flail and panic over his attraction to Charlotte Cracker—which only grew worse and now the two were dating. Not to mention that Rocinante was now an actual full-fledged pirate. One good thing out of this mess was that Sengoku, too, could gush right back at Garp about a grandson. Two downsides were; Rocinante and Law were pirates, and Rocinate was dating one of Big Mom's Sweet Commanders.

Then, there was peace for a year—and then, Red-Hair Shanks subjugates Shiki and usurps his title as a Yonko. That in of itself would not have been that bad, just a simple power shift, but, of course, Charlotte _Fucking _Linlin throws her two beli in.

How on the sea she managed to lure Kaido out of Wano, nobody knows, but it ends up with all four Yonko meeting up on Sabaody and all of Marines in high gear and higher panic—but nobody is actually dumb enough to try and interrupt Shanks' inauguration party.

Except Akainu, because of course he's the type of person to throw himself at four drunk Yonko.

Sengoku supposes he should be happy his admiral did not end up killing himself with that stunt.

Not to mention that Kaido takes over yet another island that would make a nice military base for Marines in New World, Whitebeard's crew grows so much he adds in yet another division (on top of him being in suspiciously good health recently) and Big Mom—

The less is said about that particular headache, the better.

And when a Celestial Dragon crosses paths with all four drunk Yonko on Sabaody—

Well. Necessary sacrifices are called that because of their nature, after all, and Sengoku just follows Yonko's example and drinks himself into unconsciousness.

("Shanks, what the fuck did you do with the last Road Poneglyph?"

"I hid it."

"Now you're just making trouble for that kid you gave your hat to!"

"Wha- How do you know about Luffy?!"

"I'm friends with Rouge, brat. Don't go making trouble for her kids or you'll be dealing with us both."

"Ah. Fair. Okay.")

**• 63 years old**

Rouge finally let's Ace go. He's nineteen, now, two years older than he would have been because Rouge needn't have prolonged her pregnancy, and he wants an adventure. Luffy is finally old enough to let him go, even if his mother doesn't quite want to let him fly out of the nest quite yet, but he does. Sabo departs, too, finally seventeen and intent on joining the Revolutionaries ever since that fateful meeting with Dragon.

Sabo is a lot like Rouge, Linlin has been told. Calculative, thinking, plotting, with violent tendencies against threats to those he holds dear. Ace is like a mixture of Rouge and Roger, a perfect balance, Roger's brand of dumbass crazy tempered by Rouge's ability to logic.

Luffy, however—Luffy is fourteen, will set sail in three years, and when Rouge looks at him, she can only really see a young version of the man she loved so much. Loves still. Luffy is not hers by blood, but he is in every other way, and she's proud of all of her boys, but Luffy will be the one to rock the world. He's Revolutionary Dragon's son who behaves like Pirate King Roger. There's no other way.

(_The sea calls me, louder than ever now_, Rouge writes to her with nostalgia and longing. _In three years, there will be nothing left on Dawn Island to hold me there. Will you find me then, friend?_

_Of course_, Linlin writes back.)

Then, Pedro and Zepo infiltrate Totto Land. Or, they attempt to—is it really infiltration when Linlin is aware of their every move and is allowing the to maintain a sense of sneakiness like she would humour her children when they attempt to hide birthday preparations from her? She and Brulee sit down and look at what the hell they're up to and it's a good laugh at least.

They're only brought before her after they run into Pekoms, and he beats them up, because he's a citizen of Totto Land and it's his job. And when he does, Linlin makes sure she's looking properly menacing.

"Now, now, what doe we have here? A pair of thieves," she purred menacingly from behind her desk once they arrive, and that alone is enough to make both Pedro and Zepo shiver. "Now, how should I punish you for breaking in here, I wonder? Hmm… Remove a century of lifespan, maybe?"

Pedro tries to say something, and Pekoms is honestly freaking out, because Linlin can pull off the bloodthirsty, crazed bitch if she needs to for her entertainment, and-

This is exactly the moment Bepo chooses to burst into her office, followed by Shachi.

"Hey, Auntie Lin, Law's been looking for that one book and we've been wondering it… Maybe… We could find it in the treasury—Are we interrupting something? Oh, wait- Is that big brother Zepo?!"

"What- Is that you Bepo?! What're you doing here?!" Zepo all but yells, and Linlin just hides her face in her hands with a sound that would make a kettle boiling water jealous.

"And just when I managed to be downright menacing, I had them where I wanted them—And then you come in, and I can't even be mad because you're cute, why do youuu dooo this to mee-hee-hee," she whines, rubbing her forehead. "Fine, whatever, I wasn't going to kill them, I just wanted to scare them, breaking into a person's home is very rude after all."

"So you won't actually kill us?" Pedro asks, shaken, and Linlin shrugs.

"I guess not. But- Look, maybe just give up the Poneglyphs, especially Road ones? You got Marines on you for that, after all," Linlin sighs. "If I were any less of a decent person, you'd be dead. And Shanks has the last of those, and he's waiting for a very particular individual to come and get it. You won't be able to."

"Particular individual?" Zepo asks, confused.

"A boy Shanks gave his hat to. Hat that previously belonged to Rogers. Do you know what that means?"

Something flashes in Pedro's eyes. "The next Pirate King has already been crowned, wasn't he?"

"While he's a child incapable of setting sail quite yet, it won't be long before the world is subjected to him. And trust me when I say—it will bend to him, or he will break it."

"Oh."

"Yeah," she says, and then turns to Bepo, who relocated himself to Zepo's side, and both brothers are now wailing on her carpet. "Bepo! Get your brother and his friend to the infirmary, they're bleeding all over my carpet!"

"Aye!"

"Shachi, tell me exactly what book Law needs and I'll see if I have it in the Treasury."

"Of course! It's some obscure ancient text, so-"

"Yeah, yeah, just get me the specs. And someone make me coffee, goddamnit!"

**• 64 years old**

Linlin is the type of person who does the most random things on a whim if she's bored. And this year, she is bored.

And this is how Boa Hancock ends up with a very unexpected gaggle of visitors on Amazon Lily.

Hancock's first instinct is to attempt Mero Mero Mellow at Linlin. Handing in a Yonko would truly boost her status among the Schichibukai, after all.

"Adorable, really," Linlin chuckles once Hancock is done and shocked that her ability did not work at all, no distractions required. "But you're thirty years too young, brat, trying to use your sex-appeal on someone like me."

Linlin and her daughters are a bit of a shock therapy to the very isolationist Kuja, and a great novelty—especially Pudding, Prim, and Praline with their obviously non-human lineage. They get their minds blown with the casual use of Devil Fruit, the size of Linlin's family, and just generally interact with outside world for once. Then Hancock does her 'looking so down on you I'm looking up' thing, and it amuses some of Linlin's daughters entirely too much. To the point they start doing it sometimes.

They tell Linlin that sometimes women leave Amazon Lily, and return pregnant, but only have daughters.

"I know," Linlin says. "My grandson, Pecan, was born from a Kuja woman. His mother just left him with his father after he was born and we haven't heard from her since."

It's a big revelation, apparently, and Linlin spends a good half a day teaching the Kuja most basic human biology, DNA, and reproduction patterns. All in all, it's a fun week.

**• 65 years old**

There's a sort of anticipation in Linlin's bones, seeping in with morning light when she wakes one day, and it just stays.

Only a year left before Luffy is seventeen and a fledgling pirate picking people up in the weakest of the Blues, where nobody takes him seriously, nobody realizes that this child they sneer at will rock the world even more than Yonko, even more than Roger.

It makes her feel old. She's sixty-five now, an age she never really thought she'll manage to live to. An age Eloise Campbell certainly did not manage to reach, and—she hasn't thought of that name in a long time. About a lonely woman in a big world, whose family was full of pathetic excuses of people, whose place in the great machine of society was so insignificant and easily replaced.

But Eloise Campbell is dead, and Charlotte Linlin is not. She's not Eloise, not anymore, hasn't been for forty-five years. She's Linlin, with Eloise's memories, and she adapted accordingly. She well and truly became Linlin, or, well, a version of Linlin at least. It's fine.

It's time for the world to get crazy again, and it's been thirty-five years since the God Valley Incident, and twenty-one years ago since Roger died. It's about damn time something big happened again.

In a way, it starts with Mihawk cleaving through Don Krieg's pathetic little armada. With Cavendish rising to fame as this year's Super Rookie, only to be overshadowed by eleven extraordinary individuals the very next year.

Law comes to her, face set, having absorbed all the medical knowledge Totto Land had to offer.

"I'm going now," he says, and for a moment there's something in his eyes that looks suspiciously like he's expecting her to try and stop him. She doesn't. It's the last thing she'd do.

"You may not be officially allied with Big Mom Pirates, brat, but if something happens—anything at all, just call for me, and I'll be there. You understand?" she says, and he nods, face stern. "Good. Now go, brat. I want to see your face all over the papers in a year's time, you get me?!"

"Yes," he smiles. As in; actually smiles, not smirks. "Thanks, Auntie. I'll be around. Have to get rid of a certain flamingo, and all."

"Tell that upstart that Big Mom sends her regards."

"I will."

Linlin doesn't cry when she sees the Polar Tang off. She never cries when a member of her family goes to forge their own path (and Law is family now, and not at all because his adopted father is in every way but official Linlin's son-in-law—no, it's because Law would spend evenings by her side ranting and raving about medical theories as she did her paperwork, a little angry boy who shared her taste for bitter, strong coffee, and whose sense of humor, if it surfaced, was wicked and sharp and deliciously dark, and whose brain was so brilliant not even she could keep up despite her years of experience).

She's proud, though. Of Law, of Lola, of Custard, of everyone in-between who left and returned or is still sailing. She can't wait to see how will they react to the upcoming waves, the waves they will make themselves. She can't wait to see the world change.

"How will you tackle the world, Monkey D. Luffy?" she asks quietly, to nobody in particular, ocean her only confidant. "It's your turn very soon, after all."

**• 66 years old**

"East Blue, Mama?" Cracker asks, as Linlin is checking and re-checking everything on The Glazed Baroness. She just nods at him, folding the list and putting it into the pouch on her hip.

"We're picking someone up," she tells him, clapping her hands. "An old friend of mine, finally done with all the responsibilities that tied her down in one place for the past two decades."

The Glazed Baroness is significantly smaller than Queen Mama Chanter, and much less eye-catching. It will serve them well, in East Blue, where the weirdest thing the people have seen is a fishman, and Devil Fruits are a myth. And, despite being a Galleon, it doesn't take much to operate, therefore Linlin is effectively setting out on a vacation trip with only her children. The Homies will take care of maintaining it.

"All set, Mama!" Smoothie calls from the Crow's Nest. "We're ready to sail in an hour!"

"Do you think we'll run into Custard?" Cracker muses aloud. "That Shichibukai mess is kinda putting a damper on our family time. And I'd like to spend more time with Éclair, too."

"Don't worry," Linlin placates. "If we don't run into her, we might as well pay her a visit."

"I suppose it's too much to ask to run into Heart Pirates this soon after they departed, huh."

He misses Rocinante, of course, calls can only go so far. But he'll manage until they see eachother again.

Linlin pats him on the head and turns to her three oldest who came to see them off. Perospero, Compote, and Katakuri don't quite fancy leaving Totto Land, and decided to stay behind to run the place in Linlin's prolonged absence. They're strong enough that she doesn't worry much leaving it all in their hands—they proved themselves time and time again whenever she left to pester Newgate, or on raids to replenish her life-force reserves.

"Anything happens, especially with Kaido, you call me, yes? I should be able to get back within a day if I push Zeus hard enough in an emergency," she reminds them, as she always does, sixty-six and fretting mother over her middle-aged children, all of whom are capable adults.

"We know, Mama," Katakuri says, scarf down on this rare occasion and a small smile on his scarred lips. "We'll manage."

"I'm still a bit worried, since I'm taking Cracker and Smoothie with me, and we'll be potentially gone for months."

"I know, Mama. Don't worry about us, we'll manage. And say hello to Custard for us."

"And when will she drag that boytoy of hers fully into the family anyway?" Compote grumbles. "Brat had to go after a Shichibukai position of all things, after marrying in-"

"Oh I don't know, Mihawk is an adorable son-in-law," Linlin chuckles. "But don't worry, things are bound to change, and soon."

Katakuri looks at her with a glint in his eyes, and she smiles. He dreams sometimes, she knows. And the seemingly-random things Linlin herself does also tend to actually pay off.

"We're going through paradise and to East Blue. Once we're past Calm Belt, set sail straight for Dawn Island! I want to be there by the end of the month!"

"Aye, Captain!"

It's good to sail again. She didn't even realise she missed the voyage until she set out again.

_We're all the children of the sea. Even if we carry the power of the Devils._

**• Bonus: 49 years old**

Portgas D. Rouge smiles gently as she kisses her youngest's forehead.

"Do you have everything?" she asks one more time—one final time. Luffy smiles at her, bright and unbothered, and nods. He's excited, so very, very excited, the same way Ace and Sabo were when they left, but somehow more. Brighter. The same way Roger used to be, and it both hurts and fills her with joy. Luffy is not Roger's son, but he is Rouge's, and that is enough.

Ace is with Whitebeard now, the safest place he could be, outside of the Charlotte Family, in the event that his father's identity comes to light. Sabo is with Luffy's own father, climbing through the Revolutionary ranks at an alarming pace. And now, Luffy's setting out too, her third and final child, and soon, so will Rouge.

And Luffy is going to become the Pirate King. She knows it, deep in her bones, because she knew Roger, knew him very well, and this spark that Roger had, that Ace didn't quite inherit—Luffy has it. It burns so bright, so brilliant.

And he will shake the world.

"Remember to call," Rouge reminds the boy, "especially after you get your first bounty, you hear? And call your brothers, too."

"Of course, mom!" Luffy laughs, so impossibly bright. "You're leaving soon too, aren't you?"

"Yes," Rouge confirms, gently running her fingers through his hair. "Linlin called me to tell they've entered East Blue. It won't be much longer until they get here—I'll be gone in less than a week. So off you go, brat, and have your own adventure while I have mine, understood?"

"Understood!" Luffy laughs. "And when I'm strong, I'll go to New World and visit you!"

"Of course," Rouge laughs, embracing her son, and he melts into her arms. "Linlin has one of the Road Poneglyphs anyway, once you actually go and try to reach Laugh Tale. Now go, before I change my mind and keep you home after all!"

Luffy laughs and dances outside of her reach, and Rouge sighs. She loves all the boys, but Luffy is the youngest—the baby of the family—and now he's setting out, seventeen and ready to shake the world, and she can't help but feel nostalgic. Rouge herself will be leaving her home, the safe haven that sheltered her for twenty-two years, very soon.

She looks forward, as Luffy's little boat becomes smaller and smaller on the horizon, and tries not to cry. Is it joy? Worry? Pride? Exasperation? Maybe all of those. But she knows he'll do fine. All three of her boys will do fine. They're strong, and so bright.

Rouge, in the meantime, will have her own adventure. It's been over twenty years since she sailed the high seas, and as much as she loved her idyllic family life, she was a pirate before she became a mother, and she misses it—the thrill, the freedom. And she's more than ready to return to the sea, because it's calling her home and for the first time in years, she has no reason not to answer.

(A Galleon, absolutely humongous by the standards of East Blue and relatively tiny by the New World's, where it came from, arrives at Goa five days after Luffy's departure, easily mistaken for some royal vessel. It doesn't dock, just floats barely beyond the shallows.

Rouge visits the Mountain Bandits, gazes upon what remains of Gray Terminal even years later, has some tearful goodbyes down in Foosha. Then, a boat dispatched from the Galleon arrives, a tall man with purple hair and scarred face it's only occupant.

"Hello," Rouge says. "You must be Cracker."

"Nice to finally meet ya', Miss Portgas," Cracker bows respectfully, but the wicked smile never really leaves his face. "Or do you prefer Missus Gol?"

"Aunt Rouge will do."

"Sure thing, auntie. Let's go, Mama is waiting."

Rouge leaves Dawn Island, and doesn't look back. The sea is calling for its daughter back, and she's more than happy to answer.)

* * *

**Frame of Reference**

* * *

\- Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate is 6 years older than Linlin. He's good friends with Linlin.

\- Kaido, in this story, is 4 years younger than Linlin. He and Linlin don't like eachother.

\- Kozuki Oden, in this story, begun his pirate adventure at ~28, and it lasted for 10 years, until disbanding of Roger's crew.

\- This incarnation of Linlin only has 25 children, instead of original 85. They are as follows (name, age pre-timeskip, age post-timeskip);

• Perospero (48/50)

• Compote (47/49)

• Katakuri, Daifuku, Oven (46/48)

• Cracker, Custard (43/45)

• Brulee, Broye (41/43)

• Moscato, Mash (38/40)

• Mont-d'Or (36/38)

• Smoothie, Citron, Cinnamon (33/35)

• Melise (31/33)

• Dacquoise (30/32)

• Galette, Poire (29/31)

• Prim, Praline (27/29)

• Chiffon, Lola (24/26)

• Raisin (20/22)

• Pudding (14/16)

\- Dacquoise, Chiffon, Lola, and Pudding are all in contact with their fathers. Other children are not, usually unaware of who their fathers are and without a care for it. Katakuri, Daifuku and Oven are aware they are Kaido's, and they also don't like him overmuch.

\- This incarnation of Linlin additionally has 4 grandchildren that weren't there in canon. They are as follows (name, parents, age pre-timeskip, age post-timeskip);

• Charlotte Pecan, son of Oven and unnamed Kuja woman (25/27).

• Charlotte Macaron (F) and Meringue (M), twins of Compote and an unnamed father (24/26).

• Charlotte-Dracule Éclair, daughter of Custard and Mihawk (19/21).

\- Éclair is the only child in the family with married parents.


End file.
